Projects
Diesel Exhaust Fuel and Control (DEFCON) Study
Diesel engines and vehicles account for a substantial fraction of the particulate matter (PM) and NOx emissions from the transportation sector in the US and, globally, are an important source of urban air pollution. In 2015-2016, we conducted a series of laboratory experiments at the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory to probe the emissions, formation, and properties of organic compounds arising from a modern-day diesel engine, with a focus on studying the impacts from the use of different engine loads (e.g., idle versus cruise), fuels (e.g., diesel versus biodiesel), and aftertreatment systems. The study was partly funded by Colorado State University and was done in collaboration with Delphine Farmer, Paul DeMott, and Sonia Kreidenweis.
Recent Publications:
- Secondary organic aerosol formation of organic aerosol (Jathar et al., ES&T, 2017) and the influence of intermediate-volatility organic compounds (Eluri et al., ACP, 2018)
- Primary emissions and secondary formation of isocyanic acid (Link et al., GRL, 2016; Jathar et al., ACP, 2017) and organic acids (Friedman et al., ES&T, 2017)
- Ice-nucleating particle emissions (Schill et al., GRL, 2016)
- Volatility (Jathar et al., AE, 2020) and oxidative potential (Sharma et al., ESPI, 2019) of primary organic aerosol emissions
Biomass Burning
Biomass burning, which includes wildfires and biofuel combustion, is the largest combustion-related source of organic compounds to the atmosphere. These emissions can contribute substantially to regional air quality and radiative effects. Between 2016 and 2018, we performed For instance, in 2016, we we participated in a large laboratory campaign – led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – to study the emissions and chemistry of organic compounds in wildfire smoke. This work was funded by NOAA-AC4 and the National Science Foundation (NSF)-Atmospheric Chemistry.
Recent Publications:
- Critical review of laboratory and field studies (Hodshire et al., ES&T, 2019) and influence of fire and environmental variables (Hodshire et al., JGR, 2018) on smoke aerosol aging.
- Precursor contributions to secondary organic aerosol in wildfire smoke (Akherati et al., ES&T, 2020)
- Emissions and radiative effects of sub-10 nm particles from cookstoves (Jathar et al., AS&T, 2020)
- Ongoing work ranges from studying organic nitrate production to long-term aging of wildfire smoke